Reynerd sat with his hands palms-down on his thighs, licking his lips, as though he might reach for a salty treat at any moment.
With a nod to indicate the frozen image on the TV, the actor said, ?That?s the perfect medium for me. I was born too late. I should have lived back then.?
?When?s that?? Hazard asked, for he knew that suspects often revealed the most when they seemed to be rambling.
?The 1930s and ?40s. When all films were black-and-white. I?d have been a star in those days.?
?Is that right??
?I?m too strong a personality for color films. I explode off the screen. I overwhelm the medium, the audience.?
?I can see where that would be a problem.?
?In the color era, the most successful stars have all been flat personalities, shallow. They?re an inch wide, half an inch deep.?
?And why is that??
?The color, the depth of field made possible by modern cameras, surround-sound technology-all that stuff makes flat personalities bigger than life, provides them with a powerful illusion of substance and complexity.?
?You, on the other hand-?
?I, on the other hand, am wide and deep and so alive to begin with that the further enhancement of modern film technology puts me over the top, makes a caricature of me.?
?That must be frustrating,? Hazard commiserated.
?You can?t imagine. In black-and-white film, I would fill the screen without overwhelming the audience. Where are the Bogarts and Bacalls of our age, the Tracys and Hepburns, the Cary Grants and the Gary Coopers and the John Waynes??
?We don?t have them,? Hazard acknowledged.
[143] ?They couldn?t succeed today,? Reynerd assured him. ?They would be too powerful for modern film, too deep, entirely too glamorous. What did you think of Moonshaker?? Hazard frowned. ?Of what??
?Moonshaker. Channing Manheim?s latest hit. Two hundred million dollars at the box office.?
Perhaps Reynerd was so obsessed with Manheim that sooner or later in any conversation, he would bring the subject around to the star.
Wary nonetheless, Hazard said, ?I don?t go to the movies.?
?Everybody goes.?
?Not really. Fewer than thirty million tickets have to be sold to generate two hundred million bucks. Maybe just ten percent of the country.?
?All right, but other people see it on TV, on DVD.?
?Maybe another thirty million. Pick any particular movie-at least eighty percent of the country never sees it. They have lives to live.?
Reynerd seemed to boggle at the notion that movies were not the hub of the world. Although he didn?t reach for a gun in either of the chip-bag holsters, his displeasure with this turn in the conversation was evident.
Hazard got back in the actor?s good graces by saying, ?Now, in the black-and-white era you?re talking about, half the country went to the movies once a week. Stars were stars in those days. Everybody knew Clark Gable?s movies, Jimmy Stewart?s.?
?Exactly,? Reynerd agreed. ?Manheim would have faded away in the black-and-white era. He would have been too thin for the medium, too flat. He?d be forgotten now. Worse than forgotten-he?d be unknown.?
The doorbell rang.
Sounding puzzled and mildly annoyed, Reynerd said, ?I?m not expecting anyone.?
[144] ?Me neither,? Hazard said dryly.
Reynerd glanced at the windows, where the sodden gray twilight slowly expired beyond the glass.
He shifted his attention to the television. Gable and Colbert remained frozen in flirtatious argument.
At last Reynerd rose from the sofa, but then hesitated, looking down at the bags of potato chips.
Watching this peculiar performance, Hazard wondered if the actor was approaching that amped-out condition in which a meth freak can slide precipitously from a peak of hyperacute awareness down into a haze of disorientation, into crushing exhaustion.
When the bell rang again, Reynerd finally crossed the living room. ?These geeks are always coming around selling Jesus,? he said irritably, wearily, and opened the door.
From the armchair, Hazard couldn?t see who fired the shots. The hard boom, boom, boom of three rapid reports, however, told him that the killer was packing a high-caliber piece, maybe a.357, or bigger.
Unless Seventh Day Adventists had adopted hard-sell techniques, Reynerd had been mistaken about the purpose of the caller.
Hazard came up from the armchair on the second boom, reached for his bolstered pistol on the third.
As mortal now as even Gable and Bogart had proved to be, Reynerd jolted backward, went down, casting a Technicolor splatter across the black-and-white apartment in which he had been so wide, so deep, so alive.
Moving toward the actor, Hazard heard running footsteps in the public hall.
Reynerd had taken three rounds point-blank in his broad chest, including one that must have punched significant scraps of his heart muscle through an exit wound in his back. He?d been mortuary material even as he fell.
The death-blinded blue of the actor?s shock-widened eyes seemed [145] less cold than they had been in life. He looked as if he needed some Jesus now.
Hazard stepped over the body, out of the apartment. He saw the shooter reach the end of the hallway. The guy leaped down the stairs two at a time. Hazard went after him.
CHAPTER 21
ABOVE THE CITY, AS THE RETREATING DAY shed its grizzled beard in wet ravelings of mist and drab drizzles, the hard face of night had not quite yet appeared.
On a west-side street of art galleries, of high-end shops, of restaurants in which elitist attitude was served more efficiently than the food, Ethan tucked the Expedition tight up against a red curb, two wheels in a flooded gutter, confident that the parking patrol issued tickets far less enthusiastically in foul weather than in fair.
The businesses in this neighborhood, seeking a sophisticated and exclusive clientele, stood behind shop fronts without flash, relying on subdued signage. Mere money shouts; wealth whispers.
The retail shops were not yet closed, and most restaurants were an hour away from opening their doors. Early lamplight gilded the dripping leaves of curbside trees and transformed the wet sidewalk into a path paved with pirates? treasure.
Without umbrella, Ethan moved in the shelter of shop awnings, all of which were tan or forest-green, silver or black, except for that in front of Forever Roses, which was a deep coral-pink.
The florist?s shop might as aptly have been named Only Roses, for [147] beyond the glass doors of the coolers that lined the big front room, no flowers other than roses could be seen, along with supplies of cut ferns and other greenery that were used to soften bright bouquets and arrangements.
Because of Hannah?s gardening interests, now even five years after she had been laid to rest under mounded roses, Ethan could identify many of the varieties in the coolers.
Here was a rose so dark red that it almost appeared to be black, with petals that looked like velvet, earning its name: Black Magic.
And here, the John F. Kennedy rose: white petals so thick and glossy that they resembled sculpted wax.
The Charlotte Armstrong: large, fragrant, deep pink blooms. The Jardins de Bagatelle, the Rio Samba, the Paul McCartney rose, the Auguste Renoir, the Barbara Bush, the Voodoo, and the Bride?s Dream.
Behind the customer counter stood an exceptional rose who looked as Hannah might have looked had she lived to be sixty. Thick salt-and-pepper hair cut short and shaggy. Large dark eyes brimming with life and delight. Time had not faded this woman?s beauty, but had enriched it with a patina of experience.
Reading the name tag on the clerk?s blouse, Ethan said, ?Rowena, most of what I see in these coolers are hybrid tea varieties. Do you also like climbing roses??
?Oh, yes, all kinds of roses,? Rowena said, her voice musical and warm. ?But we seldom use climbing roses. Varieties with longer stems work better in arrangements.?
He introduced himself and, as was his habit in such situations, explained that he?d once been a homicide detective but recently had gone to work as an assistant to a high-profile celebrity.
Los Angeles and environs were acrawl with poseurs and frauds who claimed association with the rich and famous. Yet even those who had been made cynical by this city of deception nevertheless believed what Ethan told them, or pretended that they did.
[148] Hannah had said that people trusted him easily because combined in him were the quiet steely strength of Dirty Harry Callahan and the earnest innocence of Huck Finn. That, he had replied, was a movie he never wanted to see.